Do I Love Her?

The Promise

[Flash forward into the 2010s].

It had been around two years since Sol and Robert admitted to having a passionate love affair with each other, leaving Frankie and Grace alone to fend for themselves. Grace had hopped around, dating someone here and there, but it never seemed to work out in the end. She was beginning to give up on romance, and focus more on her progressing sex toy business, Vybrant. Frankie on the other hand had been getting closer to her boyfriend Jacob, a farmer who had fallen for Frankie after her whole incident with her ex-husband, Sol.
On this particular day, Jacob was out of town, and Frankie was lonely, smothering herself in a cloud of pungent marijuana smoke. She was beginning to do that more often than usual, which meant she must have been doing it more than once a day. As she sat, hanging upside down on the sofa, she gazed up at the television, giggling obnoxiously as she watched two lions mate on the Discovery Channel. Grace waltzed in, confidently as always, the click of her heels echoing throughout the house, which almost instantly alerted Frankie. She flipped off of the couch, causing it to scoot a few feet, which scuffed the floor and made Grace utterly furious.
"Damn it, Frankie! I told you not to smoke inside anymore! God, it smells like the whole year of 1968 in here."
Frankie was of course trying not to laugh as she slid a rug over the black mark on the floor, slowly sauntering over to scoot her green bong off of the mahogany coffee table.
"Alright, alright... I get it." Frankie mumbled, smirking as she sat, crossing her legs in a 'polite' manner just to mock Grace.
"What's gotten into you? Every time I see you, you're high. And I'm not exaggerating. It's literally every, single, time." Grace was rather harsh and bitter, which wasn't new, but once she noticed Frankie's eyes were shining a deeper shade of blue, she frowned; knowing deep in her heart that something wasn't right.
"Frankie..."
Frankie roughly cleared her throat, swallowing before she eventually replied to Grace's much more soothing tone of voice.
"Yeah?.."
Placing her palm against Frankie's shoulder, Grace also placed her index finger under her chin, making her give her direct eye-contact.
"Is there something we need to talk about?" Frankie just shook her head.
"No." She was quick to reply, her eyes averting away from Grace's.
"I wasn't born yesterday, Frankie. I mean, obviously, but... I know there is something going on with you."
Frankie just stood up, pacing around the room before she paused, standing right in front of Grace.
"It's Jacob." She mumbled, deeply sighing with tears trickling down her cheeks.
"Oh... well, what about Jacob?" Grace arched a brow, gazing up at Frankie's heavy tears as tried to comfort her. She rubbed at her elbow, slowly taking her shaky hand.
"He wants to get married. I just can't do it. Get married again? I mean... I adore him, I adore him very much, but-" She paused as Grace stood to wipe her eyes with a thin tissue.
"I'll never love him [that] much."
Keeping quiet for quite some time, Grace slowly placed her hands on Frankie's shoulders, helping her take a relaxing seat on the sofa.
"What is so wrong about this? I don't understand why him loving you has made you so upset."
Frankie began to mumble, her voice less whiny, but a hint of raspiness was starting to show through.
"I hate hurting people, especially when they mean the world to me, but it would hurt me to marry him. You can't marry someone you don't love. I can't pretend to love him, like Sol did to me..."
Nodding, Grace tenderly caressed Frankie's cheek, roughly swallowing as she listened to each word Frankie was saying to her. She liked being there for someone, listening to them with an open mind and heart. She wasn't like that until she grew closer to Frankie, which was another reason she had such a strong appreciation for her.
"You tell him your true feelings, Honey. That's the only thing you can do. If you end up alone at the end of all of this, you burn an old bridge and build a new and improved one. I've been doing that. I've been doing that the whole time. Through Guy, Phil, everybody. You know why it gets easier for me? Because you're here... you've helped me so much. It's the least I can do to be here for you. No matter what Jacob says or does, I'll be here."
Frankie felt an immense amount of stress drift away from her, less negative thoughts clouding her mind.
"Do you promise you'll always be here?" She mumbled, gazing directly into Grace's crystalline eyes.
"I promise."
"...Promise me the way I like it." Frankie suddenly smiled, and Grace mirrored that same sweet grin as she placed both hands around Frankie's face, slowly placing a kiss to her forehead.
"I promise I'll never, ever leave you."

[This was extremely long, but I hope you enjoyed it]. ♡